[WEB4LIB] Hosts file question

[sean dreilinger]

hi stacy & web4lib rockstars:

Stacy Pober wrote:
> Now I'm curious - why would the hosts file be ignored in one case and used
> in the second?

just guessing - maybe something to do with the dns-helper that netscape
seems to run? i thought the exact purpose of the dns-helper process that
netscape has going was to work around missing or damaged DNS servers on
user LANs. anyone else seen that dns-helper thing running when netscape
runs and bothered to look into it?

> And thanks to those who offered counsel on the DNS problem.  Yes, I agree
> that we should have a reliable DNS server on the LAN and that it is an
> integral part of a network.  OTOH I would like to concentrate on changing
> the things I *can* change, rather than bemoaning  those things beyond my

i bet you can set up a named of your own (not necessarily to name hosts
on your network but to answer lookups more reliably that whatever is not
working now). missed the earlier part of your thread but there's free
nameservers for most every os, it might be worth your energy and
reasonable in the minds of your fellow net-admins to set one up and
point all the client machines at it. that adventure would start here:
	http://www.isc.org/bind.html

hth

btw you have an awesome job title there :-)
--
                          sean dreilinger, mlis
                          mailto:sean at durak.org
                          http://durak.org/sean